the only light i ever saw
by musichettta
Summary: there is more to him than alcohol and sorrow and cynicism, he wants to say, except there isn't, not since the games, when she died and his soul left with her; flying away like those goddamned pink birds. —haymitch-centric, haymitchmaysilee if you squint


_**marginalia: **_maysilee/haymitch is gorgeous and angsty and impossibly lovely so I tried to write it

(if you believe it's passable, review, if you could)

the title is from _slow dancing in a burning room_, a fabulous prompt on its own

I wrote this for my poll thingy but I'll probably write another one for THG cause I like it so much

takes place during catching fire, I guess 

is it bad that les miz reminds me of thg by the way

_**prompts:**_ broken—he couldn't run anymore—he might be dangerous, but she could be deadly

_**disclaimer: **_absolutely nothing is owned by me (not including a dangerous obsession with minor characters)

_**summary: **_there is more to him than alcohol and sorrow and cynicism, he wants to scream, except there isn't, not since she died and his soul left with her; flying away like those goddamned pink birds. —haymitchmaysilee if you squint, haymitch-centric

* * *

><p>his head hurts again. not because of the empty bottles by his feet—though those probably have something to do with it—but because it is mayor undersee's wife's birthday.<p>

which means it's _her_ birthday.

another date that comes around to remind haymitch that she is gone, that she will never breathe or solemnly acknowledge his half-hearted snark. or stand there, smiling, at reed, his younger brother, when she handed him a sweet. or give him any lightning-quick kisses like velvet, though that might have been a dream for how muddled the memory was, disarrayed with flashes of excessively pink birds and redredred blood. never again.

many drink to forget, and haymitch likes to think he is an exception, until he can't recall her laugh, and he takes extra that night to numb the pain.

katniss, strong and feeble, and peeta, caring and indifferent, try to take the liquor away from him, but they do not understand that without it he would be a shell of pain and flashbacks and absence.

there is no difference, he realizes one night, between this drunk, wasted version of himself, and a sober, broken one, at least not initially.

he wants to take his life and give it to someone worthy, except he doesn't; he is a selfish, traumatized man, who doesn't want to leave.

it would be easier if he did.

* * *

><p>sometimes he thinks that it would be better if he hadn't won.<p>

it doesn't feel like he won, that is for sure.

he sleeps with a knife under his pillow. to protect from ghosts of people whose lives he stole, or couldn't save, or threw away; it protects him from himself.

he is useless, miserable, wrecked. he could not save the next tributes from the games, he could not save his only family from president snow, he could not run fast enough to get maysilee away from those birds, he could not begin to keep himself from ruin.

and yet.

is it for the best that he hasn't stopped running from the past, if it means he can throw his living hell away for peeta's life?

is it all right that he couldn't save _innocentdeadlyvibrantdead _maysilee, if his punishment is to be as good as gone?

he takes a sip of his drink, his only friend, his only constant.

* * *

><p>he hates her.<p>

he hates her from the moment she is called, this town girl that doesn't turn into a wreck and just walks onto the stage and could actually be competition, this town girl that isn't supposed to be picked, and what does that mean for his chances?

he hates her when she doesn't cry, he hates her when she does. he hates her when she sympathizes with him, he hates her when she calls him a bastard.

he hates her when his walls start to fall, when she overwhelms his instincts to not get attached, when he finds himself caring.

he hates her he hates her he hates her.

when she leaves, he resents her for making him want to protest.

when she dies, he resents her for leaving him alone.

she is the final blow from a whip of life's miseries before he blacks out.

* * *

><p>he wants maysilee back—maysilee, a symbol for everything good and light and peaceful in his darkness, which isn't fair to her.<p>

she wasn't the angel the capitol—and he—played her out to be. she probably wasn't worth all of this pain.

(she was.)

(haymitch hates her for it.)

she means more to him dead than alive—a reminder of life and death and unintended heartbreak. a reminder of the capitol's evil and cruelty.

she was not meant to die.

he drinks to ease the pain. he drinks. he drinks.

it is an escape from murderous games and blue eyes and candy pink and mockingjays.

* * *

><p>(the first time he sees katniss' pin he nearly keels over.)<p>

* * *

><p>it is for the best that he is incapable of caring in his dazed drunkenness, or in traumatizing soberness (where he realizes what a hopeless person he is) because it will shatter him again if he does.<p>

he cannot be more cracked than he already is.

* * *

><p><em>thoughts?<em>


End file.
